For the Fall, 2019 championship, from the Minister of Arts & Sciences.
Entrants may enter a single item, or a body of work consisting of up to three related items that are connected to each other in a significant and meaningful way. A body of work will be judged as a single “item”; in this instance, individual entries will not be scored separately. Items can be from a single discipline or from multiple disciplines. In either case, entries should seek to tell a coherent and cohesive story about a historical skill, people, time, place, etc. We ask that entrants bring three copies of their documentation. No item should have won a previous Kingdom Championship, and each item to be judged should have been completed within three years of the competition. At this time, because the judging process is face to face, we cannot accept absentee entries.
The A&S Championship is comprised of face-to-face adjudication. This will consist of two sets of two to three judges, unless there are extenuating circumstances (discussed below.) At the beginning of the competition, entrants will be given two time slots for judging; each time slot is one hour in length. During judging, the entrant will be asked about their entry, documentation and experience with the project (what worked, what didn’t, etc.) While we wish we could ensure that every judge has expertise in the field of the entrant’s projects, please understand that this is not always possible. We do the best we can with what we have. That said, extenuating circumstances do arise and we are trying to put policies in place that will help mitigate such circumstances.
Extenuating circumstances: If a volunteer judge has a conflict of any kind with a specific entrant, we ask that that judge notify A&S staff and recuse from adjudicating the entrant. We do not want to create an environment where an entrant could feel penalized because of a conflict or where a judge could be accused of impropriety. Judges are asked to put aside any preconceived opinions of the entrant or their skill/knowledge and be as impartial as possible. As well, entrants are expected to understand that all constructive criticism is meant in a helpful way and not in a negative way. Both judges and entrants are asked to be open-minded about the adjudication process.
If there seems to be a discrepancy in the scores an entrant has received, there are several methods that may be used to rectify the discrepancy.
-A&S staff may have the entrant judged by a third pair of judges. In this case, the scores which more closely resemble the third set will be the standard used for the entrant’s score. As an example, the first pair of judges both give an entrant 16 out of 20 possible points. The second pair of judges give that entrant 7 out of 20 possible points. This is a wide gap, and therefore A&S staff may have the entrant judged a third time. In this example, the third pair of judges score the entrant 18 out of 20 points. Therefore, the score the entrant receives will be the first and third set of scores as they are most similar to one another.
-If there are not enough judges to have the entrant judged a third time, the two sets of scores may either be averaged or added together for the final total, and the higher total will be used.
-As a final resolution, A&S staff may opt to meet with both sets of judges to discuss the discrepancy and allow the judges the option to recalculate the scores.
In the end, we must remember that Their Royal Majesties have the option to choose champions, regardless of score. The scores and commentary from the Kingdom Championship are meant to further the entrants’ research and skill.
The rubric is on PDF. It is the current rubric that we have been using for the Faire and Champs events.
Pre-registration is not necessary, but it does help us know how many entrants to prepare for. You can pre-reg with our form or by sending the A&S Minister your name, art(s) of choice, home group (or group you most associate with), and whether you need anything (such as proximity to an outlet, or extra floor space, etc.). For youth entrants, we also need their age. This info can be sent to ae.ans@aethelmearc.org. Unfortunately, there really is no way to send out a list of who is judging, since we will get walk-ins the day of, same as with entrants.